change of skin
by Wind Spark
Summary: Jason Todd doesn't die in the explosion. Instead, he looses the use of his legs. Timothy Drake doesn't survive long as Batman's newest Robin. He dies. And when he comes back, he's not the same.
1. Tie the Knot

The day Batman agrees to let Timothy Drake become the second Robin, Jason has been in the wheelchair for one month, three days, and sixteen hours (but who's counting) and he is angry.

He's angry. Angry because Bruce lied to him, misled him, dragged him along with a silk net of words that meant happiness, meant family, meant… Meant he had a reason to live. He told Jason it would be them. Batman and Robin. Forever.

It's not Jason's fault that he's in this stupid chair. It's not his fault he probably won't ever walk again. Jason didn't ask for this. Can't Bruce see that? Can't he see that Jason would do anything, anything, he'd drag himself across broken glass, move back to Crime Alley, agree never to smoke again, if he could just be Robin. That's all he wants. He just wants to be Robin.

But Bruce doesn't see, doesn't understand, doesn't care, because Jason has been in the wheelchair for one month, three days, and sixteen hours when Timothy Drake puts on the Robin costume (Jason's costume) and smiles wide and happy and so, so unbroken, and Jason watches from the shadows and hides the bitter tears.

…

The first time Jason talks to Tim he positions himself at the top of the main staircase, looms over the boy, puts on his most frightening, Cheshire smile, and says, very quietly, in his most threatening impression of the Batman voice:

"What makes you think Robin needs to be replaced?"

The kid nearly pisses himself. The look of terror on his face is incredibly satisfying.

But he doesn't quit.

…

He doesn't make it easy for the kid. Every chance he gets, Jason harasses Tim, berates him, trips him in the hallways, accidentally runs over his toes with the wheelchair, bumps against the bruises from the previous night. Jason hides his batarangs, misplaces his utility belt, takes all of his left shoes, eats or dumps out the disgustingly healthy snacks that Tim leaves in the fridge.

And the kid just takes it. Gives Jason these heartbroken, wounded puppy dog looks every time his gloves mysteriously vanish, every time his comm. suddenly stops working, every time his boots are filled with Crisco, grape jelly, or peanut butter.

He doesn't even try to fight back. Doesn't complain to Bruce or Dick.

The two of whom are mysteriously silent on the matter.

Jason doesn't figure it out for a few weeks. And when he does, it makes him sick.

They feel guilty. For letting this happen to him, for letting the Joker get away with it, for replacing him so soon after the accident. So instead of talking to him about it, forcing him to deal with things like he should be, they're letting him take his frustration out on Tim. They're letting him bully the younger boy until he feels better, because they feel too guilty to confront him about his behavior themselves. Alfred is the only one who scolds him when Tim meekly asks the Englishman if perhaps he's seen a grappling hook lying around, the only one who can give Jason that look which will cause the missing items to suddenly reappear.

Jason wonders what would happen if Tim did complain. Would Bruce finally sit down and talk to Jason about his behavior, or would he instead tell Tim to deal with it himself.

Jason can picture it now. "Batman doesn't have time to deal with someone super gluing your shoelaces to the wall. Tell me when something important happens, like you're about to be shot in the stomach and confined to a wheelchair, so that I can be emotionally stunted and unresponsive while you deal with being a cripple, and then replace you five seconds later so that I'm sure you know how much you don't matter to me."

Something about this doesn't sit right with Jason. Sure, he can push the kid around and tease him, he doesn't mean anything by it, but the fact that Bruce knows (he's Batman, of course he knows) and hasn't been doing anything about it, hasn't been protecting the new, tiny Robin… That's not how Batman and Robin is supposed to work. If Dick had done any of the things to Jason that Jason has been doing to Tim, he's sure that Bruce would have kicked Nightwing out of Gotham and forbidden Alfred from sending him those delicious and artfully organized food packages.

Once Jason realizes that Bruce isn't going to stop him, he sees things a bit differently. Sees just how much Tim is struggling. Sees the dark circles under his eyes, the bruises covering his arms, which Jason is sure stretch over the rest of the younger boy's body, and the heaviness that rests on his shoulders when he thinks no one is looking. And Jason thinks of all the times he's hidden his replacement's clothes, forced him to stay up after patrol cleaning up the mess that Jason left in his bedroom, or fixing his corrupted computer, or redoing the vanished homework, and Jason realizes…

He's been acting like a first class dick.

…

"Come on, replacement."

"Jason? What…"

"That wasn't a suggestion, kid, come on, I'm gonna teach you how to fight."

"I, but I know how to fight, I trained with Lady Shiva and Bruce, and-"

"And somehow you still fight like shit. Now get over here. We're gonna start with falling."

"Falling? But I learned that the first day, I don't-"

"God, do you ever shut up? Now come here so I can push you over."

…

It takes a little bit of time to adjust. Time for Jason to consistently be… nice. Nicer. Time for Tim to start trusting that the older teen isn't just treating him differently because he has some scheme set up that will cause Tim to be seriously injured. It's not easy. It takes time.

Tim's fighting style improves. The kid is a quick learner. And Jason enjoys teaching him.

To pay him back for the lessons, Tim teaches Jason about computers, revealing a cryptic cyber world hidden in gigabytes of data. And surprisingly, Jason finds that he likes working with computers. Not just likes, actually, he loves it. And this is something that he can do, something that he can use, something that can help, and having something to do again feels fucking amazing, he's not gonna lie.

And suddenly things are different. Suddenly they're staying up until four in the morning to marathon Star Wars, fixing tech together, Tim is helping Jason with his Trig, Jason is helping Tim with English (it's outrageous the number of books he's read since he lost the use of his legs), or they're planning elaborate pranks on Dick, taking the same side in disagreements with Bruce. Sometimes Tim sneaks into Jason's room and wakes him from the nightmares. Sometimes Jason covers Tim with a blanket and replaces the book he's fallen asleep on with a pillow. And when Tim returns to the cave, a trail of blood dripping where he walks, Jason is there to support his steps and help Alfred sew him back together.

Bruce is baffled, Dick pleasantly surprised, and Alfred just smiles.

…

The first time Tim smiles at a criminal, smiles that wide, Cheshire smile, all sharp teeth and intent to brutally injure, Jason's chest swells with pride.

…

And then one day, Tim comes back without a pulse.

Yet again, Jason probably could handle this better. But he doesn't.

"I mean shit Bruce, you'd think after the bastard put me in a wheelchair you'd take better care of your kids."

He shouts so Bruce doesn't see how close he is to sobbing. Rages and shatters and refuses to eat, but it's ok, because no one sees his tears. Or at least that's what he tells himself.

…

They bury Tim beside his parents, and they keep on living, the same as always. There are just two changes.

The first:

"No more, Bruce. No more Robins. No more kids."

Bruce agrees.

No more boys made men too early.

No more boys whose bodies resemble those of war veterans.

No more boys cold in the ground, six feet under, never to breath again.

The second:

He calls himself Oracle. A vigilante unlike any before. Crippling corrupt systems from within. Emptying bank accounts with the click of a button. Obtaining information which should be impossible for him to have. His eyes in every corner of Gotham, Bludhaven and beyond, feeding facts and figures into the capable hands of Batman, Nightwing, and the network of heroes that stretch across the world.

They say he never sleeps. That tragedies in his life have made his a tireless weapon of justice, his obsession one which rivals that of even Batman.

Jason's reasoning is simple. If he does his job, if he keeps the pulse of the criminal underworld at his fingertips, if he watches Batman's back from surveillance cameras and satellite feeds, then there will never again be a need for a Robin. No more old, crippled, dead boys.

Oracle. The name was Tim's idea.

…

Barbara moves to Gotham the week Tim dies. Three months later, she's traipsing around the streets as Batgirl. Then Spoiler decides she wants to team up with the bats, and Babs takes the younger girl under her wing. And then there's Cassandra. As if that weren't enough, suddenly there's a Batwoman, and Jason is quietly wondering where the hell all these ladies are coming from.

Finally, there's Damian. That one was a shock to everybody.

Things have changed in the past few years. Villains have risen and fallen, and after the monkey apocalypse of '07, Jason doesn't think there's anything that can surprise him.

He's wrong.

Despite Jason's protests, Damian Wayne is the newest Robin. And one day, as the family gathers in the entranceway of the manor, planning an appearance at some idiotic Wayne Enterprises gala, there's a voice from the top of the stairs.

It's a voice that has haunted Jason's dreams for years. It's a voice that he's heard a thousand times, through headphones, in person, over a comm. It's a voice he hasn't heard in years. It's a voice he never expected to hear again.

"So," Tim drawls, eyes soot black, Cheshire grin glowing in the dusky evening light. "What makes you think I need to be replaced?"

* * *

I might continue this later. Yes, yes I will. Right now I don't know how to get through the next part. Whatevs.


	2. Rework the Wound

He sees Batman sometimes. When he's managed to clamber to the top of the gutted remains of a building that no one else bothers to enter, when he sits at the top, hidden, his disguise the tattered rags and coating of dirt shared by Gotham's homeless. When he's sitting there, looking out over the city, letting the wind fill his lungs, dreaming that things are different, that he's Robin again, that the Joker, the explosion, the darkness, none of it ever happened, that he's Robin again and Batman will keep him safe, that everything will be alright.

He sees Batman, a shadow that shouldn't exist, a flicker, a dash of black against the glow of the city, wrapped in his cloak and his darkness and his mysteries.

He wants to cry out. Call to him. Make him see. (_I'm right here_) But he doesn't. Not since the first time, when he had tried, so hard, desperate and pleading and _why, why, why won't his lips form the sounds, why can't he force out the words, why doesn't he work anymore, why did he have to come back_ wrong?

Batman had turned. Seemed, for a moment, to look at him. And then he was gone.

Leaving Tim alone.

…

He tries not to think about the moment he came back to life.

The gasping, the aching, the burning as his body rebuilt itself from the inside out, the too thin, too stale air, the crushing, consuming darkness that had swallowed everything and replaced it with pure, mindless terror.

He doesn't remember digging himself out. He dreams about it almost every night, wakes up sweating and gasping and fumbling for the flashlight in his pocket that will do little to calm him, but is better than nothing. Seconds later, the dream is gone, and he is left with the memory of the coffin, the memory of the night sky, and nothing in between. Tim counts this as a small blessing.

…

The man is loud and angry, his voice distorted by flying spit and an accent that Tim guesses is Yiddish. He's a pimp and a drug dealer, and he's been screaming at the woman with the gold hoop earrings and the spider web fishnets for nearly ten minutes, working himself into a frenzy. Neither of them have noticed Tim; he's hidden between the rotting stairs that lead into the old theater and a piano that someone pushed from the second story window nearly a month ago.

Tim tries to ignore them. For Gotham, the altercation is fairly tame. It's not until the dealer slaps the woman, shoves her to the ground, reels back a leg and aims a kick that Tim realizes he isn't going to be able to leave it alone.

The dealer is able to get in another kick before Tim hits the back of his head with a chunk of masonry. The blow is glancing, his arms refusing to cooperate, and it's a miracle his bad leg doesn't just give out right there. But the effect he wants is achieved. The man turns with a curse, gripping the back of his head and knocking Tim over with a heavy fist. The woman glances at him, confused, and then scurries away when she realizes that the man's full attention is now on Tim.

"You lookin' for a beating?" the man snarls, enraged.

On the ground, Tim sighs.

"N-n-n-n-no."

It's one of the few words he can manage, and he's proud that the stuttering isn't as bad as it usually is. The man laughs at him, then glances back to make sure his victim is still where he left her. Of course, she isn't. She's gone. There's only the boy with the bad leg and the twitching eye and the ridiculous stutter.

It's not the worst beating he's ever had. Everything pales in comparison to the night with the crowbar, the laughter, the sickening crunch of his own bones breaking as blood pooled around him. That doesn't mean it's very pleasant.

Half an hour later, he's still lying their, struggling to breath through the cracked ribs and the blood that's filled his mouth and nose. Someone crouches down beside him, a someone who smells like cigarettes and cheap hotels and lemons, and he hears the jangle of gold hoop earrings before he sees them.

"You're one crazy kid, you know that?" she says as she gingerly wipes away the blood, careful of his broken nose.

Tim just closes his eyes and smiles a bit, knowing that between the blood and the broken teeth, he probably looks like something out of a horror film.

But there's a warmth in his chest, a calmness as he feels a blanket cover him, feels strong arms lift him, cradling, hears the soft rumble of a man's voice. The movement aggravates his injuries, forces a whimper from his throat, but he doesn't care. He did what he was supposed to do. What he could do. What Batman, what Bruce, would have expected. He was useful.

He curls around the warmth, smiling, and lets unconsciousness overtake him.

…

He wishes he didn't remember the moments after he dug himself out, but those memories are the ones he finds it impossible to forget.

Looking around, seeing his own name,_ Timothy J. Drake_, carved into the grey granite of the headstone. Turning, and seeing his parents names on the grave beside his.

Tracing the letters of his mother's name, numb to the bone, shaking so badly he couldn't even control his hand, the high, keening cry that he couldn't keep inside.

Slamming his head against the dull, ice cold, unflinching stone, because it's a dream, it's all a horrible, terrible dream, there's no way any of this is real, he just has to wake up, and his face is bloody and his forehead stings and all he can think is that he has to wake up, wake up, wake up.

It's a dream.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

But he doesn't wake up.

…

He worries about Jason sometimes.

Bruce, he knows, will get over it. He'll find another Robin, (and the thought hurts Tim more than he would like to admit) he'll continue fighting crime, he'll do whatever he has to for Gotham, for his home, for the memory of his parents (and maybe, Tim sometimes dares to think, for his memory as well).

Alfred, of course, will mourn in his quiet, somber way. But he is old and worn and death is just another thing that he has learned to live with. Alfred, Tim knows, will not forget him, and that is a comfort.

Dick will mourn. Maybe for a short time, maybe for a longer time, but Tim knows love when he sees it, and he knows that Dick loved him, because Dick loves _everyone_. Even when Tim messed up, Dick was always there for him. The Titans will help him through. Dick's family is large, his ties strong, and they will help him, and maybe, maybe another Robin will come along, and Tim's memory will fade, his shadow burned away by a bright new smile and a happy new laugh.

But Jason. Tim worries about Jason. He wonders who will read with him now, who will remind him to do his physical therapy, who will watch Buffy with him until three in the morning. He wonders if someone will wake Jason up when the nightmares come, if someone else will realize that Jason likes sitting in the window seat on bad days, if someone else will make him hot chocolate (it's a little difficult to reach the ingredients with the chair), if someone else will remind him to eat (because he forgets and doesn't like to bother Alfred).

Tim wonders if anyone else will notice the half desperate, half empty looks that Jason sometimes gets when Batman or Nightwing or Robin run off to fight crime and protect the city. He wonders if anyone else will realize that Jason is terrified of being left alone.

Sometimes, the want, the need to go back is so strong that Tim almost cries. He wants Bruce to smile at him again, wants Alfred to give him that coveted nod of approval, wants Dick to scoop him up and coo as he hugs him tight, and he wants, so badly it aches, to sit with Jason and lean against his chair and feel Jason run his fingers through Tim's hair when he thinks the other boy is asleep. He wants to hear, one more time, "Sleep tight, baby bird."

But he can't go back. He can't come back with a dragging leg and twitching hands and eyes that can't even focus correctly. He can't come back with muscles that almost never do what he wants, muscles that at times spasm uncontrollably. He can't come back to them, not even able to _speak_.

He wonders what strange god played this joke, bringing him back to life, only to slowly kill him again.

…

"Where do you think you're going, Trip?" Candy asks.

They call him Trip because the only letters of his name he was able to get out were the T, a misplaced R, and the I. And because his gangling, swaying walk makes him look like he's going to fall over at any moment, they affectionately named him Trip.

He doesn't mind the mistake. They're kind, in their own way. Candy, with her gold earrings and her crooked half-smile. Aiden, huge and muscled, who laughs like Dick, open and carefree. Maren, angry and red and bursting over with fire, who snaps and snarls and lets him cuddle against her on the cold nights.

He'll miss them. But he's desperate. He's suffocating under the weight of the body that refuses to acknowledge his commands, suffocating under the memory of Batman and Robin and a time when he was _useful_.

So he points (waves his hand in the general direction of west, wishing his fingers weren't twisted quite so uncomfortably today) and takes a deep breath, saying the word that he's practiced over and over and over again for the past month.

"Ra's."

…

"Are you sure this is what you want?"

Ra's al Ghul is surprisingly accommodating for a madman who controls roughly half of the planet's illegal activity. Tim would have expected him to be a little more threatening, a bit more hostile. Instead, Ra's is a perfect gentleman. He recognizes Tim immediately, and with the barest amount of pantomiming and half words Tim is able to explain the situation, as well as his desire.

Ra's asks if he is sure. He asks quite a few times. Tim acknowledges his concern and makes sure the Ra's understands. He needs this. He needs to be useful. He needs to be _something_.

The bit in the fine print about temporary insanity and unforeseen side effects is, admittedly, a little concerning.

But he has to try.

So Ra's gives him his own set of rooms, gives him food, fresh clothes, offers him anything he needs.

Tim knows what his plan is. Knows that Ra's cannot help but take advantage of the fact that Batman's own former Robin is asking him for help. Tim knows that there will be a debt he has to pay. What Ra's doesn't know is that Tim has his own plans.

But for now, he ignores Ra's, ignores his plans and his schemes and the fact that Gotham might hang in the balance because of his decisions.

The day comes. Tim is ready. He's scared of course, more than a little nervous, but he's ready. He's been ready for years.

There's the fall. The pain. And suddenly Tim isn't ready, he isn't sure, there's something here he didn't factor in, something wrong, something not right,_ it's eating him alive_, but by that time it's too late.

There's nothing left. It's just him, and the Pit, and the all consuming rage.

…

The plan was to use the boy. To awaken the beast inside of him that would understand the need for violence, that would recognize the futility of Batman's resistance, that would recognize Ra's as the leader that he is.

That was the plan.

What happens is this.

Timothy Drake emerges from the Lazarus Pit, his body healed, everything about him physically perfect. But his mind is… changed.

Temporary insanity. It means something different for everyone who enters and leaves the Pit. In Drake, it awakens a monster that Ra's did not expect.

The twenty ninja that are positioned around the Pit are wiped out within seconds. It is not bloody. It is not messy. They are slaughtered quickly, with straightforward snaps of necks and slices across throats.

Ra's runs. He is not ashamed to admit it. But he does not run fast enough. Drake makes his way through the compound, leaving a trail of silence and bodies, and he finally presses a sword to the older man's throat, silent as ever, eyes black and endless, the Pit a flicker of green in their depths.

"Doing this will result in nothing. You cannot kill what is immortal."

"I don't care about killing you permanently. I'll work on that later," says the boy. "This is just to make me feel better. I won't be anyone's _pawn_ Ra's. Remember that next time."

He splits the man's skull. Neatly.

It's a month before Ra's al Ghul climbs out of the Lazarus Pit again. He finds his empire in ruins. No corner of it untouched. That, however, is far from his main concern.

A new war has arisen in Gotham. A new player has entered the game. The city is burning and the great Detective is at a loss. But Ra's knows. He knows why the streets are bloody, why the people quake with fear, why the bats fly about in scattered panic.

Timothy Drake has come home.

* * *

I really don't like this as much as the first part. But this is as good as it's gonna get. Now I just need to figure out how to do the next part.


End file.
